Firenze, Italy (22-23 June 2008)

the most famous bridge in Firenze

Firenze or commonly known as Florence in plain English is the city where Renaissance started. The place is full of renaissance trail from the famous Uffizi to the Academia where the famous statue of David resides. There are plenty of museums for the museum lovers. For those who wanted to visit the Uffizi, it's better to book the tickets online as the line to entrance is extremely long.

I still remembered that we reached Florence from Rome in the afternoon and lined up almost two hours to get into Uffizi. It was good but my favourites are still Lourve in Paris and British Museum (for the free entrance). Remember I wrote something on the mishaps we had during the journey from Rome to Florence in the Venice post..it was related to train travel. We had bought the Euro pass for our Europe travel and didnt know that to get onto the Eurostar which is the fast train from Rome to Florence (takes about 1 hour) instead the slow train which takes about 3 hours, we need to pay booking fees which cost about 12 Euros. So we just hopped onto the Eurostar and little did we know, a few minutes later, the conductor came to check on our tickets. Since we did not have a valid ticket, we were quite panicked and decided to run off to the toilet or the cafe to avoid him. I actually passed by the conductor and he asked for my ticket. I just pretended I didnt know English and wanted to grab some food, I walked off to another coach. We loitered around the cafe for half and hour and to our horror there were many conductors/ officers chatting and eating in the cafe. We ordered for a coke and pretend to be cool. Later on, we went back to our seat (somehow no one booked the seat we had) and thinking that the conductor had gone, we were relaxed. After 10 minutes, the conductor came back and my bro being the very panic one told me to pretend to be asleep. I was dead tired and did dozed off but he was so stressed and panic and couldnt sleep. Luckily the conductor did not asked us for tickets as he had checked our coach. My bro even scolded me that I could sleep during that stress moment..haha..and to think of that incident, it was really funny now. So for the next train to Venice from Florence, we took the slow train which was free for the Euro pass. No more near misses..

Florence cathedral

the famous Uffizi

Ponte Vecchio at night


view fron Ponte Vecchio

Anyway, back to Florence, we went into Uffizi and walked for a few hours. I still couldnt appreciate museums but to maximise the money that we paid we just loiter around. After that we walked towards Plaza Michaelangelo which is at the top of a hill and the famous location for the TVB drama Triumph of Skies. From here you can catch the most panaromic view of Florence. We just chilled out and took some amazing photos. I highly recommend to walk towards the plaza instead of taking the bus as the view along the way was stunning plus you can burnt a few calories.

stunning view along the way to Plaza Michaelangelo

panaromic view of Florence from Plaza Michaelangelo

At night, we went back to the Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge in Florence which is near to Uffizi and shot some night views. The next day we went for a day trip to Pisa and then a visit to the Florence largest cathederal. Although Florence is not as famous Rome or Venice, she is one of my favourite city as the city is laidback and there are many spots to chill out by watching the crowd. We did our share of crowd watching by eating strawberries and gelato near the large cathedral.

Lastly, a Merry Christmas to all!!